Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) has decided to temporarily suspend the import of fish and shrimps from Viet Nam.

The ban, effective from March 1, is in accordance with the regulatory procedure for fish and other aquaculture export establishments of SFDA, according to a note published on the Saudi Aquaculture Society’s website.

The decision came after a delegation of several regulators, including SFDA, Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture and Saudi Aquaculture Society conducted an inspection tour last month to 24 Vietnamese facilities that exported to Saudi Arabia.

The delegation found that only nine facilities met the hygiene requirements of Saudia Arabia, reported vtv.vn.

The suspension will be in place until the facilities complied to Saudi Arabia’s requirements.

This is one of the most serious actions by Saudi Arabia against Vietnamese exporting firms.

The Viet Nam Sanitary and Phytosanitary Notification Authority and Enquiry Point under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on January 30 also announced the SFDA’s notice about the temporary ban.

The notice said that Saudi Arabia was instituting the emergency measure to prevent the introduction of white sport disease and acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease into the country.

The Viet Nam Sanitary and Phytosanitary Notification Authority and Enquiry Point urged relevant agencies to raise appropriate measures to tackle this problem.

SFDA has also temporarily suspended the import of aquaculture products from Bangladesh and Myanmar and farmed fish from India, according to Saudi Aquaculture Society. —VNS